The Best Fluffy Pancakes recipe you will fall in love with. Full of tips and tricks to help you make the best pancakes.
The opening sequence of GBBO 2022 (S13) gives us some tantelising glimpses of amazing bakes to come – some real Wow! moments. But first we have to get through the sticky mess of the first episode and this one starts with another parody/comedy sequence that, inevitably, I hate. I also don’t particularly like the new batch of bakers, but that’s perfectly normal. It takes a while to get used to the interlopers. After a few weeks I’ll like them and by the end of the series I’ll love ’em …. I hope!
You can watch GBBO on More 4
Last season was affected by covid restrictions which meant, among other things, that all of the bakers were from England and rather a lot were from the home counties. I’m expecting a better geographical spread this time.
It’s cake week. Oooh! New ovens!!!
Signature – 12 Identical mini-sandwich cakes (2 hours)
The final for Series 5 featured 12 identical mini-Victoria sandwiches so this is not entirely new territory. Prue and Paul are looking for originality, flavour and personality.
Rebs from Northern Ireland is making Hazelnut mocha latte. Abdul also opts for hazelnut and chocolate. I’m fully on board with these choices but then Janusz goes one better with pistachio & cherry vodka. As mama always told me “Get ’em drunk and they won’t care what it looks or tastes like!”
Dawn goes tropical with lime, coconut and Tamarind. Hmmm. Sandro is more conventional with chocolate orange. There’s a somewhat naughty “love is in the air” link from Sandro to Kevin who is making pears and love cakes because there’s a large pearsan community in his church… Oh Persian! Ok. Pistachio, almond and cardamom sponge with rosewater buttercream. Good luck!
Maisam, from Libya, is also using pistachio.
Swedish Maxy forgot to add eggs and Will, who forgot to start his timer proudly declares that he’s making the technically difficult version of buttercream (Italian). If you find it more technically difficult then why make it in week 1? I actually prefer to make Italian rather than Swiss but everyone has their quirks.
Compost Carole lays an early claim to be the traditional baker this year… just before Dawn who is “trad” … but with a few modern twists, such as tamarind!
Malaysian Syabira adds pandan to our growing list of unusual ingredients.
And already its pretty clear that my expectations of a more balanced bake-off are not going to be met. There are actually more Londoners this year (5, up from 4). The inclusion of 2 Scots and 1 Northern Irish is very welcome but there’s no Welsh. Instead we have representation from Malaysia, Libya, Sweden and Saudi Arabia. You’re all welcome … if you are truly Britain’s best amateur bakers!
Maisam’s Swiss buttercream curdles but she knows how to recover it. Will’s buttercream splits … twice. “I dont know why! ” he quips, but the over-riding impression is that he doesn’t know how to make it, or recover it.
Assemply is rushed and the results are varied.
Maxy gets a tough critique…Huge and dry. James’ sticky toffee pudding tastes great but needs detail. Carol has cute detail. “Whats not to like?” Kevin’s rose is perfect but the cake is heavy and very dry. Maisam’s buttercream is a total mess but there’s nothing wrong with the flavours.
Sandro’s plant pots look good. The flavours are punchy and the ganache works well. I’d be interested in trying this.
Dawn – looks delightful. Abdul – Looks delicious. Syabira – “Could be neater. Delicious flavours.”
Rebs was ambitious with her design and I liked the idea. It’s a shame the caramel ran, exposing an unimpressive naked sponge to the world.
Will gets a devastating critique but takes it with good humour.
Janusz – looks amazing. Very light sponge. Boozy. Perfect or too much booze depending on whether you are training to be an alcoholic.
Technical challenge – Red velvet cake 6 sponges cream cheese (2 hours)
“It’s a classic. Concentrate on your sponge”
I always thought red velvet had beetroot but apparently it needs food colouring.
I find it a bit worrying that some of the “best bakers in Britain” don’t know how bicarb works. They express the usual concerns about the lack of instructions but I’m feeling somewhat unsympathetic. Bake for as long as it takes. No instructions for making cream cheese. Really!
Rebs takes the sponges out way too early and they sink rapidly. Janusz is going for a semi-naked look! Will seems to have made a pyramid. At least Sandro knows what he’s doing.
In the appraisal we learn that the cream cheese should be almost as thick as the cake and a lot of the cakes are not tall enough. I’m not sure I would have known that. On the official website you can see what they should look like…
…oh, so not anywhere near as thick as the cake layers!
The recipe is available on the official Great British Bake Off website: recipe
There’s a pretty clear winner of this challenge. The comments for the others include “claggy”, “undercooked” and “all over the place”.
And there were a few tips hidden in this round … too well hidden. Buttermilk and vinegar are acidic. They react with sodium bicarbonate to give carbon dioxide which gives the cake its rise. Next, if you overwhip cream cheese it will go liquid. This tip is curiously missing from cheesecake recipes and I always wondered why the pictures showed a lovely thick creamy mix when mine was pourable. Pretty much everyone knows that if you take a cake out of the oven too early it will collapse, so no prizes for that one.
Show stopper – replica of your home (4 hours)
This is one of the less inspiring challenges we’ve seen on Bake Off. The Australian final (#GABO) asked for “your dream home” which invites endless possibilities for imagination. But “your home”? Most British (and NI) houses are uninteresting boxes so my expectations are low.
Dawn is recreating nan’s pebble-dash with praline and German buttercream. Mmmm! 😄 Genoise. That’s brave.
Sandro – Strawberry sponge and more booze.
Janusz is building a high rise flat from chocolate and spice. I like the sound of those Christmas spices. It’s not long now ’til I start baking lebkuchen. Can’t wait.
We get the briefest glance of Sandro’s cake mix. It looks curdled. But quickly we’re back to Janusz and he’s adding dark soy sauce to his mix. Erm, ok.
Will is making a North London flat out of Madeira cake. There are quite a lot of real Madeirans in North London and real Madeira cake is actually a heavy ginger cake but what Will is talking about is a basic butter cake with a little bit of flavouring. It perfectly captures the essence of a north London flat. Boring.
Kevin will bake banana and pecan cake. That’s a good solid choice. Carole’s bungalow is a traditional coffee and walnut cake because she’s a traditional baker… with a twist! She’s replacing the coffee with chicory (yuck!) It will be interesting to see what Prue and Paul think of this.
Maxy makes a block of flats from apple and berry crumble between layers of cinnamon sponge.
And there’s always one. This year its Abdul who forgot to put his oven on … for 40 minutes! Really? I mean, REALLY? He has to pray!
Milk tea and matcha – NO! When will these people learn?
Rebs Pina Colada – The sponges look good to me but she says they’re not fully cooked and starts on a cake transplant operation.
James’ cottage looks a bit solid. He didn’t do well in the technical so he really needs a good result today. Could be in trouble.
Maisam’s lemon tree looks suspiciously like a fig. And Siyabira’s coconut tree looks like… well, make up your own mind…
It’s not what you think it is!
As they start to bring together their constructions you can’t help but notice the piping work and icing is very slapdash. where is the real detail?
BREAKING NEWS – Will’s buttercream has split again!
Let’s skip to the judging and find out what Prue and Paul thought of Carole’s traditional coffee cake, without coffee… “The coffee is burning.”
James, a true scotsman, has good piping but he’s claggy again.
Maxy’s piping is clumsy.
Dawn’s Genoise looks like one to try. It’s described as “Charming”, “Fantastic cake” and of course light. I like it, despite the look.
Sya – Both judges saying nice detail but I dont think so. “No hero flavour.” “The tea isnt strong enough.” – that’s because you shouldn’t put tea in a cake!
Will “Overbaked every one” but manages to laugh it off. It looks seriously dull inside … just like a north London flat.
Maisam is dense and puddingy. Her textures are all wrong.
Sandro – I though it looked too simple but cutting through the cake … Wow! He knows how to bake. Even Prue thinks there is too much alcohol.
Janusz has made an “utterly delicious” and “very chocolatey” dalek
TBH, I’m not wowed by any of these!
Round Up
It’s not a classic start for the season. I’m genuinely disappointed with the selection of bakers and I think the choice of show-stopper was aweful. Without the tantelising snippets of next week’s bakes I might well switch my attention to DGB or LMP. From what we’ve seen so far I would pick out Sandro, Janusz and Carole among the best. Will, Rebs, James and Maxy were all in the mix for leaving first.
Spoilers below…
I thought Sandro had the best Signature and was 2nd in the technical so a good show-stopper would have won him “star baker”. He over-did the alcohol and under-did the design. Still, he must have been close. Janusz didn’t shine in Signature or Technical but was top in (a fairly weak) Show-stopper. I think “Star Baker” is deserved but everyone needs to up their game. Well, everyone except Will. He really should have known how to make Italian meringue buttercream AND how to rescue it. He took defeat with good humour and all credit to him for making it into the great tent.
